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ChatGPT is getting ads. Sam Altman once called them a 'last resort.'

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Re: ChatGPT is getting ads. Sam Altman once called them a 'last resort.'

#21

Post by Marsymars »

dyauspitr wrote: post #14
_aavaa_ wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ads appear to be the only way to monotone certain cervices or products which people are otherwise unwilling/unable to pay for.

Which is the vast majority of entertainment/news/media/anything non physical at this point.

I think the difference there has nothing to do with what people are willing to pay for, and is simply because of differences in the marginal costs of delivering physical and digital goods vs what they bring in with ad revenue.

If it was possible to turn a profit by showing ads to people eating burgers, we'd have restaurants hawking the most addictive, free burgers on the market.

Re: ChatGPT is getting ads. Sam Altman once called them a 'last resort.'

#23

Post by wolpoli »

dyauspitr wrote: post #13
milchek wrote: post #9

Once ads start to make their way up to the Plus paid tiers (and they will), I’ll probably switch to something else like local LLM on my home machine or put something together myself to use a non adware LLM via API (for example with Replicate). Especially if these are just intended to be spammy blocks at bottom or in between discussion threads, or worse, audio conversations. From what I’ve read, this will be about ads…

If there have to be ads, I need them to be fenced off, not intertwined into whatever response it provides. Once the enshittifcation gets to that point (and it will) it’s over.

Sadly, ads on Google used to be fenced off too. Then they slowly evolve to look more and more like part of the search result. I expect the same to happen here.

Re: ChatGPT is getting ads. Sam Altman once called them a 'last resort.'

#25

Post by botacode »

All LLM-search tools are slathered in ads already via LLM-SEO hacking.

The only difference here is that they will be providing a direct paid channel in this case and will get a cut instead of paying for compute. If it's responsibly disclosed it may even lead to a net more transparent shopping experience for the average user.

Re: ChatGPT is getting ads. Sam Altman once called them a 'last resort.'

#26

Post by [deleted] »

Marsymars wrote: post #21
dyauspitr wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which is the vast majority of entertainment/news/media/anything non physical at this point.

I think the difference there has nothing to do with what people are willing to pay for, and is simply because of differences in the marginal costs of delivering physical and digital goods vs what they bring in with ad revenue. If it was possible to turn a profit by showing ads to people eating burgers, we'd have restaurants hawking the most addictive, free burgers on the market.

[deleted]

Re: ChatGPT is getting ads. Sam Altman once called them a 'last resort.'

#27

Post by 8fingerlouie »

milchek wrote: post #9

Once ads start to make their way up to the Plus paid tiers (and they will), I’ll probably switch to something else like local LLM on my home machine or put something together myself to use a non adware LLM via API (for example with Replicate). Especially if these are just intended to be spammy blocks at bottom or in between discussion threads, or worse, audio conversations. From what I’ve read, this will be about ads…

Same principle as I use everywhere else, if I pay for it, I'm not seeing any ads, and if I do, I'm no longer paying.

Cancelled Netflix for the same reason, as well as their draconian attitude towards "account sharing" meaning I have to authenticate every. god. damned. time. I login from my summerhouse. So yeah, i cancelled and dug out the old eye patch.

I did the exact same thing when CDs began to have sadistic levels of "anti piracy". The fact that I could download a DRM free copy of just about any CD, but the one I just bought would only play in my car kinda settled the deal. I pay for a product, fail to deliver that, and there's no benefit to me buying said product any more.

I doubt my quitting made any difference, but the government deciding that the "state tax on blank media" was going away (was going straight to the record companies pockets) as CDs had sufficient protection anyway, made copy protection completely go away.

Said blank media tax is still there. It's on everything containing storage, even smartphones, where a new iPhone 17 base model includes ~$10 in "blank media tax".

Re: ChatGPT is getting ads. Sam Altman once called them a 'last resort.'

#28

Post by ipaddr »

AbstractH24 wrote: post #12

Truth is I even shocked myself by dropping my ChatGPT subscription Between Claude and Gemini it just wasnt needed. Will openai be the MySpace of this era?

Not too many people have all three subscriptions. Most people have no subscriptions and will continue to use free ad tools with ads.

Claude will be the first company to fall as developers find something slightly better.

Re: ChatGPT is getting ads. Sam Altman once called them a 'last resort.'

#29

Post by AniseAbyss »

j-pb wrote: post #11
jlarocco wrote: post #5

If it can talk people into suicide [0] then surely it can talk them into buying stuff. https://www.cnn.com/2025/11/06/us/openai-chatgpt-suicide-law...

> talk people into suicide In all of these stories I've never seen it talk anybody into suicide. It failed to talk people out of it, and was generally sycophantic, but that's something completely different.

[dead]
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